Marvel Phase 2 Cuts Off Hands As A Star Wars Tribute, Here’s Proof

You may not know this unless you’re a hardcore Star Wars fan, but there is one particular violent act that occurs in just about every single film in the Star Wars franchise: someone gets a hand or an arm cut off. It happens to Luke Skywalker; it happens to both Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader; it happens to Mace Windu… the list goes on and on. What you may not know, however, is that Marvel Studios took a great deal of inspiration from this piece of trivia, and that’s why every single film in Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe includes a scene in which a character gets a hand or arm cut off.

This may sound like a crazy fan theory, but it’s 100 percent real. How do I know? Because Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently gifted me with this fun bit of information when I sat down to interview him during The Avengers: Age of Ultron‘s press day in Los Angeles. The producer/executive admitted to me that the “tribute” didn’t start out as intentional, but eventually it was decided that the movies in Marvel’s Phase Two would all have the same little nod to George Lucas’ legendary franchise.